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I have an account with Network Solutions that they will not let me cancel without calling their sales team. I do not have an active credit card on file with the
by brandon272 13y ago
I have an account with Network Solutions that they will not let me cancel without calling their sales team. I do not have an active credit card on file with them nor do I have any domains or hosting services. They send me e-mails every month trying to bill me for something that I haven't signed up for with language indicating that I'm about to "lose" my services (that don't exist) if I don't pay.
They're terrible.
It fascinates me because I wonder who the leadership team is and what the company culture is like. Do they decide to be terrible by sitting around in meetings brainstorming ways to screw their customers?
- wil421 13y agoTheir leadership team must be grasping at anyway possible to gain revenue.
- rhizome 13y agoHere they are: http://www.web.com/aboutus/leadership.aspx http://www.web.com/aboutus/leadership.aspx They have a Chief People Officer.
- primitivesuave 13y agoAfter quickly glancing over their credentials, it seems like the underlying problem is that the key leadership is entirely business people while the people with actual training in CS or engineering handle smaller responsibilities like "Online Marketing". In today's world of developer-friendly SaaS, they're doomed.
- smsm42 13y agoYou don't need CS degree to understand that charging somebody automatically $1850 for something they didn't even ask is not the best idea. I won't be surprised if eventually NetSol will find itself on a receiving end of a very expensive class action suit. OTOH, by that time those C-types would have probably moved on to the next opportunity.
- beat 13y agoIt's not new. They've been this way as long as they've been a real business, since the '90s.
- burke 13y agoIf you send them an email demanding your account be canceled, CC companies will usually let you use that to dispute further charges until your account is actually canceled.
- Andrenid 13y agoI tried this now, will see how it goes. They enabled auto-renewal on a domain name I have there that didn't used to have it, and want me to call a US number (i'm not in the US, i'm not paying international charges) to cancel auto renewal. I also requested they close and delete my entire account with them.
- ceejayoz 13y agoHardly necessary if "I do not have an active credit card on file with them"...
- eli 13y agoSure, until they decide you have an overdue balance and send it to collections. (Not suggesting they do this... but if they think you owe them money, they certainly could)
- websitescenes 13y agoThis would be my fear/concern. It's happened between me and another company before.
- jdkuepper 13y agoMaybe if they get enough chargebacks at up to $100 a pop they'll stop trying these things.
- pedalpete 13y agothey'd have to get 18 chargebacks per successful charge in order for them to stop. I'm sure this was a calculated risk.
- franklovecchio 13y agoI've been trying to transfer a domain name (.io) purchased from them to _another_ Network Solutions customer for business reasons. I can't even pay them to make this happen. "It isn't possible" they tell me.
- simcop2387 13y agoMight be easier to send it to another registrar, and then let the other customer transfer it from there. Might cost a bit more but it could be the easiest way.
- franklovecchio 13y agoDidn't think of that! Thanks.
- blueskin_ 13y agoBe careful, with some TLDs there is a minimum time limit between transfers.
- rkalla 13y agoI always like thinking about this "company culture" question when you see the external communications from a company. GoDaddy is very similar in that most all the emails they send are titled "ACTION REQUIRED" or another equally misleading alert. Very frustrating, builds nothing but distrust from me... like having a friend crying wolf every 10 mins.
- shortstuffsushi 13y agoThis is actually really funny to me. I got an email from them a week ago telling me that my "auto billing renewal" had failed because my card expired. I checked "don't automatically renew" when I first signed up. I removed my credit card a month ago, when I realized it had been saved.
- sireat 13y agoThis is nothing when it comes to GoDaddy. My father is out $500 for 3 lousy domains (typical name extension coms swindles) and the typical GoDaddy "premium" services, because GoDaddy managed to find his new credit card info without him entering it. That is GoDaddy found out the new expiration dates for his card. Seriously, they can do that. There is VISA/MC program which merchants can use to obtain new credit card information from previous customers. Of course, it is his fault for not explicitly cancelling the domains, but GoDaddy can be an expensive lesson.
- esw 13y agoIt's surprising, but some banks do enable rebills on cards regardless of the expiration date. I learned this because I have subscribers whose cards are 'expired', but the charges still go through. I needle them constantly to update their billing info, but I still have one guy with a card that expired in 2012. More importantly, your dad shouldn't be out $500. I had some SSL certificates rebill through Godaddy at an astronomically higher rate, so I called, and was able to easily obtain a refund. If Godaddy isn't willing to offer a refund, just call your credit card company and issue a chargeback. The chargeback process greatly favors the consumer, and you're almost certain to win.
- quadyeast 13y agoSome companies can make more profit by repeatedly ripping their customers off by small amounts. AT&T has done this to me repeatedly and your recourse is to call customer service and waste hours to recoup a few dollars. (And yes, I need to find another solution)
- jjh42 13y agoHad a similar issue with AT&T. Now I'm using prepaid straighttalk service ... Not great but no mysterious extra charges.
- x0054 13y agoAT&T has recently tried to charge me a leasing fee for my U-verse router. I called in and explained to the person on the phone that I own the router, and referred him to my first months statement were it specifically states that I paid $160+ for the router. The man on the phone told me that their policy has changed, and they now charge leasing fees to everyone who does NOT own their own equipment. I explained to the man that I do. His answer: "As a favor to you, because you are such a long customer, I am going to waive the fee for now." It took me another 20 minutes on the phone to explain to this imbecile that I can not possibly be required to lease my own equipment from my self. His final statement to me still was: "Yes, I can see here that you own the router. Because you feel so strong about this, we are not going to require you to pay any additional equipment fees." I was fucking speechless.
- lostlogin 13y agoWhat is it with telecoms? I have had issues like this too but in New Zealand. I actually beg them not to transfer me to their fault team in Manilla every time they decide its a fault I have. If I have to speak to Peachy, Pricilla or Daisy again I'll scream. I eventually found that all Telecoms here have their accounts departments within the country. So any issues I have I choose accounts to talk to. The locals have always been rational so far.
- 13y ago
- gcb0 13y ago> It fascinates me because I wonder who the leadership team is and what the company culture is like. Do they decide to be terrible by sitting around in meetings brainstorming ways to screw their customers? Yes. i mean, no, because they get bonuses for every revenue they drive like that, so they won't discuss it in a meeting. They will instead gather a small band of loyals, and implement that in the dark, reporting only way up. I know because I worked with a company that was like monster.com but charged from the poor people looking for the jobs. Companies could list the positions for free, and the people submiting to the positions had to pay. It was free the first month, but you had to give a credit card. Which WILL be charged every month unless you fight on the phone. Simply canceling on the site does absolutely nothing.
- taf2 13y agohow did they handle the chargebacks? These typically can cost between say 15 and 25 per chargeback immediately to the merchant regardless of resolution?
- gcb0 13y agopeople cancel, gets charged, did not get the job (most positions were fakes anyway), get the credit card bill, says wtf I'm still looking for a job, might as well use it now. you'd be impressed by what unemployed people looking for a job puts themselves thru
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Spoom 13y agoI wouldn't work with such a company on ethics grounds. It does seem like there's an opportunity for a company that lets companies list for free, but charges the listing company when they successfully hire a candidate. That would align the priorities of everyone involved. There would be issues with validating hires when they happen but I think that could be worked around.
- JOnAgain 13y agoLinkedin CEO appears not to have a linkedin page (really?) CFO: www.linkedin.com/pub/kevin-carney/a/494/713 CPO: www.linkedin.com/pub/roseann-duran/0/66a/971 ... it goes on https://www.web.com/aboutus/leadership.aspx https://www.web.com/aboutus/leadership.aspx they're publicly traded: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=WWWW http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=WWWW Would be interesting if Yahoo ran this on their finance news site.
- jeswin 13y agoCEO appears not to have a linkedin page (really?) You shouldn't be surprised when people choose not to have LinkedIn profiles. I quit LinkedIn because they were spamming me. They were also selling spamming privileges (or InMail) to anyone willing to pay. The user experience is below average, the groups are pathetic, and recommendations have become essentially worthless. So really, having a LinkedIn profile isn't obligatory.
- lostlogin 13y agoI commented a while back on LinkedIn spam, and got the distinct feeling I was an odd one out here (and that it was up to me to filter their crap out). Their service provided me with the contact details of someone who damaged my car - and calling his employer got things rolling fast after weeks on inaction. However the LinkedIn spam still tracks me down occasionally months after fleeing the service.
- eliteraspberrie 13y ago
- jordsmi 13y agoI got so sick of these emails. I just created a filter so that it auto deletes any emails from them
- blantonl 13y agoYou cannot even cancel an auto-renew for a single domain without having to call into a call center, sit on hold, and then go through the various levels of scripts that drones read to you. It is clearly designed to bill you to death.
- javajosh 13y ago>It fascinates me because I wonder who the leadership team is and what the company culture is like. Do they decide to be terrible by sitting around in meetings brainstorming ways to screw their customers? This fascinates me as well! But I don't think it's anything that dramatic. I think that a company like Network Solutions is a cash cow in the technical sense, so their people are probably under impossible pressure to "grow" what is a mature business. Then they do things like this and hope the customers don't notice - because 99% of the time, they don't. NetSol needs ot learn from banks and insurance companies, who've turned frog boiling into a fine art. They know precisely how much to take away from you before you hit the road. (which is weird especially with banks since they are dead simple to switch - and longevity with a bank means nothing to your credit score even if you try to take a loan from that bank.)
- allochthon 13y agoI do not have an active credit card on file with them Be careful. If they charge an inactive card, it is possible that after some investigative work the charge will be moved to an active card along with additional fees.
- Tepix 13y agoNetsol is terrible. You should really call them and cancel.
- huhtenberg 13y agoPerhaps change your email on file to abuse@networksolutions.com ?
- larrys 13y agoUpdated story on this here: http://domainnamewire.com/2014/01/21/network-solutions-auto-enrolls-customer-into-1850-weblock-service/?new http://domainnamewire.com/2014/01/21/network-solutions-auto-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7104424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7104424
- joeyespo 13y agoAfter being fed up with them by trying to close my account that had a single unused '.it' domain, I finally figured out how to cut the ties. Without playing their games. I changed my name[1], phone, home address, email[2], and used a testing CC number[3]. Call it a hack, but I haven't heard from them since. For once, I was actually glad their sales team was much stronger than their tech. [1]: To "Why won't you let my cancel my account here??" [2]: mailinator.com [3]: getcreditcardnumbers.com